Tagged: PiYo

I know I did. I got a great workout in this AM, picked up my groceries, and spent some time meal planning. I’ll get to that in a second, though, fiiiiiiiirst of all I’d like to mention how I think it’s quite amusing how in my last post, I shared with you what a typical day looks like for me. Well, that’s all going to be changing, because I’ve officially accepted a full-time position and I go back to work full-time for the first time since Em has been born a week from today! It’s safe to say that I am a pleasant combination of totally excited and terrified!

Excited by the new opportunity, the fabulous company I’m going to be working for, the work that I will be doing, and wearing more than just yoga pants all week. 😉

The terror is really just that someone who is NOT me will be taking care of my baby cakes. *YIKES*

I’ve met the daycare staff and they are lovely, wonderful women. I’m totally confident in their abilities. I just think the whole nursing-on-demand for 10 months and rarely taking a bottle will be a little rough for the first week. But I know she’s a tough little cookie and we’ll both power through it. Ultimately, I know that this is the right time and opportunity and that it’s what is best for me and my family. I plan to spend the next week snuggling my little munchkin butt as much as she can stand and trying to get into some semblance of a routine to try and make out transition easier. I’d love some tips from any working momma’s out there!

Anywho, as for my meal planning, the PiYo meal plan is fairly straight forward and makes a whole lot of sense to me. Although based on my weight I technically fall into the “Plan A,” because I’m still nursing I get to bump up the the second tier and follow the eating plan for “Plan B” which constitutes 1500-1799 calories a day and is broken down into 5 categories. Thank goodness for that. I am seriously an eating machine. Planning it out really helps to keep in check though. Knowing exactly what I’m going to eat in a day before I eat it is also particularly helpful what with having a baby and all. It means if she’s down for a nap I know precisely what I need to do for my lunch of snack and don’t need to dilly dally thinking about it. I know that some people find meal planning boring and tedious, but I quite enjoy it. I, personally, have been using a spreadsheet in Google Docs to keep track of everything. Below is my meal plan for the upcoming week.

5 Primary Veg

2 Secondary Veg & Grains

2 Fresh Fruit

4 Healthy Fats

5 Lean Protein

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Breakfast

Shakeology, skim milk

Shakeology, skim milk

Shakeology, skim milk

chocolate protein,
skim milk, greek yogurt

2 eggs

2 eggs, 2 chicken sausages

blueberries

blueberries

banana

banana

cheddar cheese, avocado

cheddar cheese

almond butter

almond butter

almond butter

oatmeal

Ezekiel toast (2x)

potatoes

spinach

spinach

peanut butter

spinach

peppers, onions, spinach

Snack

string cheese

Ezekiel toast (1x)

hard boiled egg (2x)

grapes

grapes

grapes

hard boiled egg, chicken sausage

avocado

hard boiled egg

Lunch

turkey meatballs

chicken

chicken

chicken

chicken

chicken

broccoli

broccoli

broccoli

avocado

black beans

avocado

ww pasta

sweet potato

sweet potato

spinach, peppers, tomatoes

romaine, peppers, onions, tomatoes

spinach, peppers, tomatoes

avocado

Snack

chicken

peas, carrots

hummus

hummus

chocolate protein,
skim milk

chocolate protein,
skim milk

peas, carrots

peas, carrots

banana

banana

peanut butter

peanut butter

spinach

spinach

Dinner

bbq chicken

turkey taco meat

chicken

asian turkey

pepperoni

grilled chicken

baked potato

romaine, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, salsa

peppers

lettucce, peppers, scallion, snow peas

cauliflower, tomatoes

grilled peppers and zucchini

cheddar cheese

cheddar cheese

quinoa

edamame, brown rice

mozzarella

mozzarella

romaine, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions

pesto, mozzarella

Snack

banana

greek yogurt

grapes

greek yogurt

peanut butter

banana

peanut butter

Workout

Sweat

Hardcore to the Floor

Buns

Drench

Strength Intervals

Sweat

TOTALS

5

5

5

5

5

5

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

4

4

4

4

4

4

5

5

5

5

5

5

It may seem daunting, but it’s really not. Especially since I eat so many of the same things on different days, I can just copy and paste and calculate.

I plan to go more into detail about PiYo and my experience with it when I finish the program. The week will finish up the first month – I’m down 3 pounds since I started and I definitely notice that I feel stronger doing certain things – particularly triceps push-ups!

That about wraps it up for me tonight, though, with all of the thunder outside it’s about time I shut it down.

There is nothing more irritating when you’re staying home with baby than people asking “What do you do all day?”

Because babies, after all, are like cacti, right? You can just totally forget about them for a month and they’ll be totally fine.

*shakes head*

I assure you, I spend my days doing more than sitting on my fanny eating bon bons or whatever it is the crazies think I do. I know that, ultimately, I plan to return to work soon and Em won’t be a baby forever (no matter how much i wish it 🙂 ) so I take the good with the bad and cherish every moment I have with my little munchkin butt!!

So in true blogger fashion, here is what a pretty typical day looks like for me and my baby bear.

7:30 AM: I’m usually up by 7:30 each day and yesterday was no exception. Although we put Em to bed alone in her pack and play – as she currently likes it a bit more than her crib – I pretty much always bring her into bed before we wake up in the morning. On a good night, she’ll only wake up to eat twice and the first time I can put her back in her pack and play and she’s totes cool with it. She just had another tooth break through this last week, though, so we haven’t had a good night in a while. Either way, I do love the snuggles and waking up next to this is really a happy start to the day. I let her sleep for a few more minutes while I get my breakfast together and wake her up to join me.

7:45 AM: Breakfast always consists of tea, please and thank you. I go back and forth lately between oatmeal, eggs, or Shakeology. This is chocolate Shakeology mixed with 1 cup skim milk, 1 cup frozen blueberries, and 2 teaspoons of almond butter. It was banging. More chocolate for breakfast. Get it together, Jen. Lolz, it’s cool. Shakeology is the best! Emma had some Cheerios and sliced banana. I’m trying her out on grapes this week and so far she’s just tossed them onto the floor. We’ll get there, I’m sure.

8:30 AM: Em takes a while to eat, what with being an adorable little baby. Once she’s all done we play. She’s still been a wee bit fussy so sometimes that means I just sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider to her over and over again for 20 minutes because no matter what kind of mood she’s in it always makes her giggle. We nurse for like 5 minutes and eventually I put her down for a nap. She’s been fairly consistent in getting sleeping and needing a nap about 2 hours after she wakes up. This nap lasts for approximately 20 minutes.

9:45 AM: She wakes up and wants to play more, so I plop her down next to me while I do my PiYo of the day – Lower Body. I’m absolutely LOVING these workouts. The longest one is about 30 minutes and I always break a sweat. I started 3 weeks ago and I’m already down two pounds and a few inches. I can even see my ab muscles peeking through my tummy chub! I’m so excited to finish the whole program!!

11:00 AM: I have a quick snack of 2 hard boiled eggs and try to give Em some cheese. She eats about 1/3 of it and gives the rest to Quincy who is waiting patiently underneath her high chair. Smart boy. Then the hubs comes home for lunch. I make him 4 eggs with cheddar cheese and 2 slices of whole wheat toast with strawberry jam. This is a daily ritual that I love. He doesn’t stay home for long, because work is busy, but I always enjoy it when he pops by. When I go back to work I will miss this. Em decides once Daddy leaves that she’d like to nurse a bit more. Only about 10 minutes this time. It’s super nice out so I decide to take her and Q for a walk! Ugh – that face! We need a bigger hat for her giant dome.

12:30 PM: Time for lunch. I have two pieces of ezekial toast (my latest obsesh) with 3 oz of shredded chicken mixed with 2 tablespoons of mashed avocado, red onion, and baby kale. I also have a side of carrots. For my PiYo meal plan, this covers 2 grain servings, 1 protein, 1 healthy fat, and 2 vegetables. I’m allotted 5 veggies, 2 secondary veggies/grains, 2 fruits, 4 healthy fats, and 5 proteins per day. I won’t lie, I struggle with keeping to 2 secondary veggies/grains. I had 3 on this day – but I try and only go over on days where I get more exercise than just the PiYo workout. Like today, walking a mile carrying an extra 22 pounds, I was like…go ahead and have two slices of bread at lunch. But otherwise I do an excellent job keeping track of and sticking to my meal plan. It’s working out really well so far! Em has a few shreds of chicken and avocado for lunch. She loves chicken! She is her father’s daughter for certain – heh.

1:20 PM: It’s play time again. This little lady is seriously trying so hard to stand and move all the time. She’s not a crawler. She doesn’t get up on her knees. She squats like a frog and it’s adorable. She also scoots forward on her butt sometimes, too. One of these days she’s just going to get up and start running I swear. Em plays with Grandma for a little while too so I can take a quick shower.

2:00 PM: Play time poops her out and it’s time for the biggest nursing sesh of the day. Usually around two or three she’ll – what I like to call – snooze eat – for about 45 minutes. She starts out eating, but then drifts off into a little nap where she’s still sucking and if I try to move her she clings to me for dear life and the process starts over again. I don’t really mind. This is when I’ll usually pop something on Netflix and just hang out with her on me for a little while. As long as she gets some sleep she’s a much happier baby, so I let her.

3:30 PM: Laundry is probably my most hated household chore. It is never ending. Because even when allllll the dirty laundry is clean, you know that what you’re wearing needs to be washed. Bleh. Emma clearly agrees with me and was not having it.

4:00 PM: The hubs is usually home around 5:00 once it gets warmer outside, so knowing that I’ve got sweet potato fries to make and how long they take to get to our desired crisspyness I start dinner around 4:00. I plop the babe on the kitchen floor surrounded by fun stuff and she is WAAAAAAAAY happier than she was at laundry time.

I flipping love my Pampered Chef Crinkle Cutter. It is absolutely one of the most fantastic kitchen tools I have – particularly for sweet potato fries! It’s great for squash and things that are a little harder to cut into, too, since you can safely use both hands to cut it. I also used it to slice the zucchini I grilled to go along with our turkey burgers for dinner. 5:30 PM: The hubs and I enjoyed dinner outside. I love grilling man. Grilled turkey burgers (he ate his like a normal human on buns) with a wee bit of cheddar, on romaine leaves for me because I would rather eat a ton a sweet potato fries than a burger bun, and grilled balsamic zucchini. Emma napped while we ate dinner. For about 25 minutes this time.

6:00 PM: Once dinner was done and all cleaned up I had a bit more laundry to do. Emma was much more into it this time. 6:20 PM: So, I’ve been trying for a while now to get Emma to eat yogurt. It’s not that she doesn’t like it. It’s that she doesn’t like for anyone to feed her. She is a very independent 10 month old. Heh. The last few attempts have been pretty futile. Last night before bath time I was like “Alright, today is the day.” So I stripped her down to her adorable little diaper, plopped her in her high chair, and let her have at it. I led the spoon into her mouth a few times while she hung onto it, but we has several successful bites of yogurt. I call this a win!

7:00 PM: Bath time is literally Emma’s favorite time of the day. I could leave her in there until she becomes a tiny baby prune and she would just splash around with a big ol’ smile on her face.

Ugh – I just can’t. I love her so much.

7:20 PM: Once we’re dry and in our jammies Em likes to play a bit more. I try to read her a story, but she just wants to chew on the book. We’ll nurse on and off for like 20 minutes because she’s fussy and sleepy. At 8:00 I put her down to sleep “for real.” I enjoy my snack – vanilla greek yogurt with 1/2 a sliced banana in about 5 seconds flat and peruse my new issue of Cooking Light while the hubs fiddles on the computer. Eventually we settle down together on the couch and watch an episode of 30 Rock on Netflix. We’re currently watching that, and Dr. Who, but we’re nearing the end of Dr. Who and kind of don’t want it to end!!9:00 PM: Johnny heads to bed at 9:00 because he’s up at 4:30 to hit the gym before work. I pop on the computer and get a tiny bit of blogging in before Emma wakes up at 9:20. *sigh* I nurse her until 10:00 and put her back down. Every night is a little different. I’m pretty sure she slept in her pack and play until about 1:00 AM before she wanted to eat again. I slept from about 10:30 to 1:00, was up until 3:00, then slept again on and off until 7:00 when I proceeded to lay in bed and snuggle until about 7:45… then we start all over again!